Bethlehem watershed fights fire with fire

The Bethlehem Authority partnered with the state Game Commission and The… (DANIEL MEIXELL, CONTRIBUTED…)

June 11, 2012|By Nicole Radzievich", Of The Morning Call

Bethlehem's watershed was set on fire Monday.

Flames, shooting about 2 feet high, consumed nearly 114 acres of ferns, dead tree trunks and other brush that had been choking out the native wildlife prized in the Long Pond section of Tunkhannock Township.

Pennsylvania Game Commission officials were on standby, not to douse the forest fire but to make sure that it didn't go out. Two dozen members of the burn team carefully coordinated the operation, igniting sections with diesel-fueled drip torches so that entire section of woodlands would go up in flames.

"This is an important part of habitat restoration," said William Williams, information and education supervisor at the Pennsylvania Game Commission. "The goal is to reduce the amount of potential fuel on the ground — the underbrush — and to [recreate] soil conditions that will allow this area to thrive."

The area, less than a mile from Interstate 80, is known as the barrens — an edge forest where the blueberry bushes, rhodora and scrub oak attract neotropical songbirds and other fauna for nesting and food.

But invasive plants, like ferns, have overtaken much of the area. Nature used to take care of this balance with small forest fires ignited by, for example, lightning strikes. As the area was settled and firefighting methods improved, the natural forest fires have virtually stopped, causing the habitat to evolve over the last 60 years.

Not only is the environment at stake, officials fear, but also safety. So much wood has built up over the years that the area is one campfire or lightning strike away from a raging inferno. The authority reported a decade ago that it had produced 25 tons of underbrush per acre — 10 more tons than it should have.

So, the water officials are fighting fire with fire.

The Nature Conservancy and the Game Commission ignited the fire under specific conditions: They cut fire lines around the acres to be torched, mowed the area so that the fuel was kept close to the ground and chose a day with little wind.

Monday's fire marks a departure from the controversy that simmered more than a decade ago surrounding the idea of controlled burns. That's when the Nature Conservancy, a seasoned burn manager, offered to buy an easement on the watershed to do controlled burns. The negotiations coincided with New Mexico's largest wildfire — the Cerro Grande fire— that started in May 2000 when a prescribed burn near Los Alamos spread to 47,000 acres and destroyed more than 200 homes.

The Bethlehem Authority, the financial arm of the city's water operations, didn't pursue the effort back then, but decided to consider burning more recently after learning of a 2009 state law that limits liability and lays out prescribed burning standards.

The authority partnered with The Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit that has done similar burns in the Pocono Mountains, and the Game Commission.

The commission has done 350 acres of prescribed burns in the northeast part of the state and up to 1,500 acres statewide, according to land management supervisor Peter Sussenbach.

Over the last few years, the Game Commission and The Nature Conservancy have burned barrens surrounding the authority; including the authority's property, they'll have restored 1,200 acres of habitat.

Sussenbach said the changes in wildlife are almost immediate, with some animals returning within days. He said he has spotted a golden-winged warbler, a songbird that has been avoiding that section of the woods because of all the overgrowth.

The burns on another 43 acres were scheduled to continue Tuesday but will be delayed because of the rainy forecast. In all, the authority has approved 177 acres of burning.

Steve Repasch, executive director of the Bethlehem Authority, said the authority will be considering additional burns at its meeting Thursday as

part of the overall land management plan on its 23,000-acre watershed in Carbon and Monroe counties.